Apple iPad breaks new record
CNBC reports that the iPad has become the most quickly adopted non-phone consumer electronics product in history, topping the DVD player, which shifted only 350,000 units in its first year on the market. Apple sold over 300,000 iPads in its first day, and took just 28 days to reach one million units sold.
iPad sold three million units in the first 80 days after its April release and its current sales rate is about 4.5 million units per quarter, according to Bernstein Research. This sales rate is blowing past the one million units the iPhone sold in its first quarter and the 350,000 units sold in the first year by the DVD player, the most quickly adopted non-phone electronic product.
While many products have quickly reached sales into the millions of units, Bernstein appears to be focusing on consumer electronics categories, where the iPad has seen unusual success as the launch product in a segment as it has been jumpstarted by its connection to the rest of Apple’s iOS ecosystem.
Perhaps more interesting is Bernstein’s observation that the iPad is set to become the fourth-largest consumer electronics category in 2011 with over $9 billion in sales.
At this current rate, the iPad will pass gaming hardware and the cellular phone to become the 4th biggest consumer electronics category with estimated sales of more than $9 billion in the U.S. next year, according to Bernstein. TVs, smart phones and notebook PCs are the current three largest categories.
Bernstein’s Colin McGranahan also suggests that the iPad is likely to be “cannibalizing” even TVs and digital cameras, noting that customers who make $600 iPad purchases are likely to delay purchases of other electronics due to financial considerations.
LG Optimus 7 (E900) official pics outed
LG’s Windows Phone 7 handset, the E900 – or LG Optimus 7, is expected to be announced officially on 11 October along with a handful of other handsets from Samsung and HTC.
Blowing any chance of surprise out of the water, official looking press shots of the new phone have appeared on a German site for all to see giving us an early glimpse of what LG is expected to debut ahead of schedule.
Aside from the name, which is also yet to be confirmed by the way, the pictures give us little to go on other than that it will be a touchscreen device sporting a 5 megapixel camera on the back.
Motorola Spice is the Brazilian Android portrait slider of your mid-range dreams
It was just announced at CTIA (and released in Brazil) as the Spice. Apart from the form factor, it’s basically a Flipout with a different hinge — it’s got Android 2.1 with Motoblur, a 528MHz processor, a 3.2-inch QVGA screen, Motorola’s crazy “Backtrack” rear trackpad, and a 3.2 megapixel camera — but it was apparently designed and built entirely in Brazil, so that’s something. We’re assuming AT&T passed on this one when it chose to release the Flipout, Flipside and Bravo instead, but damn — can someone please take this form factor and put it together with a high-end Android spec sheet already? We have cash money.
Internet Explorer falls below 50 percent global marketshare, Chrome usage triples
According to Stat Counter, Microsoft’s browser has officially fallen below the 50 percent market share mark to 49.87 percent. Firefox holds relatively strong at 31.5 percent and Chrome is soaring with 11.54 percent having only launched just over 2 years ago.
In Europe, IE market share has fallen to 40.26% in September this year from 46.44% in September last year. While in North America IE is still above 50% at 52.3% followed by Firefox at 27.21% and Chrome at 9.87%. The rise of Google Chrome in North America has also been impressive and in June it overtook Safari for the first time.
Expectedly it’s the geeks and early adopters that appear to be driving Chrome’s growth. One reader highlights that fact by revealing that out of 55,000 visitors to his site from Hacker News (an entrepreneurial/early adopter community), only 1.13 percent were using Internet Explorer.
Android is number one OS among US phone buyers over the last six months
Android’s exponential growth has today been illustrated by Nielsen’s statisticians who present us with the above chart of recent US smartphone purchases. It shows that over the six months leading up to August 2010, 32 percent of American new phone buyers had grabbed themselves a device with Google’s OS on board, which is comfortably ahead of RIM at 26 percent and Apple at 25 percent. These results corroborate NPD’s figures on the matter — which peg Android at 33 percent of new US purchases — and reiterate the idea that Android is headed to a place whose name starts with D and ends with omination. One more chart showing total market share can be found after the break (hint: BlackBerry still reigns supreme overall).
Motorola's MT716 OPhone launched in China
If only this was a hoax. Yes, that’s some bitter talk alright, because this Motorola MT716 from China Mobile is almost the perfect Droid that we once had on our dusty wish list: a similar slider form factor but with a hard-cap keyboard, as opposed to one with spongy mashers. In fact, eagle-eyed readers might have already spotted that this is the exact same keyboard as featured on the Cliq. Compared to its distant relative, other differences on this OPhone include an 8 megapixel camera (with dual-LED flash and 720p camcorder feature), an extra VGA front-facing camera, TD-SCDMA radio, WAPI connectivity (WiFi-compatible), and CMMB TV streaming; otherwise, you’ll find the same weedy 600MHz TI OMAP3430 chip, 480 x 854 LCD, AGPS and Bluetooth 2.1 inside. Now if you’ll excuse us — we have a petition to write up.
HTC Desire HD vs Samsung Galaxy S
HTC has been leading the way for a couple of years now when it comes to Android smartphones, and it’s just upped the ante once more by unveiling the long-rumoured Desire HD, along with a 4.3-inch touchsreen and HD video recording. Meanwhile, Samsung has been gunning for a slice of the Android phone market with its usual tenacity, but can the Samsung Galaxy S compete with HTC’s new weapon of choice?
Form Factor
- Galaxy s 122 x 64 x 9.9mm; 118g
- HTC Desire HD : 123 x 68 x 11.8 mm, 164g
The Galaxy S is not only shorter and slimmer than the Desire HD, it’s also a great deal lighter. Although its lightweight design won’t put too much pressure on your pockets, is does mean that it doesn’t really have the feel of a premium phone. However, thanks to it’s sheer portability it beats the HTC in this round. Read more 
TEGA V2: Dual-boot Windows 7/ Android Tablet
Australian manufacturer Tegatech has just reveled plans for a similar device that, like the ViewPad 100, will offer two operating systems – Windows 7 and Android 1.6.
Now, you might be a bit miffed with the ancient Android version, but Tegatech’s website states that it is working on 2.1 and 2.2 updates.
On board you’ve got an Intel Atom N455 1.66GHz processor, with 1GB of DDR3 RAM and Intel Generation 3.5 integrated GMA 3150 graphics.
Storage is the SSD variety and comes in 16, 32 or 64 variants.It’s got a 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen, with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity as standard and optional 3G, Wimax and Wibro.
Port-wise, you’re looking at an SD card reader, two USBs and a VGA. There’s also room for a SIM if you want to go down the 3G route.
The Tega v2 comes with either a 0.3 or 1.3-megapixel camera and the device measures 243 x 190 x 14mm and weighs in at 870g.
The most apparent drawback of the device is a maximum battery life of just four to five hours.
The Tega v2 will launch worldwide on 15 October, although as yet there is no UK release plans as Tegatech is “still looking for more partners in the UK”.
Eken Launches 8″ M005 Android Tablet
Looks like this tiny little Shanzhen company isn’t quitting, they started making some headway in the global market when their 7 inch tablet got rebranded by a few global players. Now it seems that are coming to market with the M005 measuring in at 8 inches and running a 400MHz VIA 8505 CPU, and 128MB of memory, which doesn’t have us reaching for our pocketbooks.
The tablet has an 800 x 600 pixel display, 802.11b/g/ WiFi, and 2GB of flash storage. It has an SD card slot, USB port, headphone jack, and webcam. It is also running a 4:3 aspect ratio which is a little unique in the tablet space. The folks over at Shanzai.com have let us know that is going to be running Android 1.6 rather then the rumored 2.1.
Skype app arrives in Android Market
After a long wait, Skype is finally widely available for Android phones, and can be downloaded off Android Market. It was exclusive to Verizon’s Android phones for a while in the US, but now the whole gamut of Android phones can enjoy it. Well, at least it has been tested with HTC and Motorola devices, running Android 2.1 and up, aka the Verizon Android line. Skype is admitting there are some issues with the Samsung Galaxy S still, that are being ironed out.
There were some lite versions and substitutes before, but nothing beats the real thing. With the dedicated app you can make free Skype-to-Skype calls, do instant messaging, or call phones at low rates, at home and abroad – over WiFi, 3G or 4G. If you have a Skype account, your contact list will appear when you sign in on your Android phone. To call abroad, just dial the number in Skype, and use Skype Credit to pay. There is also unlimited subscription based calling with various rates.
Skype can be downloaded from the Android Market, or from skype.com/m on your phone. Some say Skype and the likes can kill voice plans, but we are positive the carriers will make up for it in data charges.
AIVAnet 